House Warming Podcast, Episode 016: Allies in Environmental Justice: Frontline Communities and Anthropocene Alliance with Sheelah Bearfoot, Program Manager at Anthropocene Alliance
In this episode, Sarah talks with Sheelah about a grassroots efforts of communities to address environmental justice concerns in both the built and natural environments and how Anthropocene Alliance amplifies and facilitates their work.
Sheelah Bearfoot is a program manager at Anthropocene Alliance (A2) for communities in EPA regions 5,8,9, and 10 and for A2's Rights of Nature initiatives. She graduated with a degree in Genetics and Plant Biology from UC Berkeley in 2016. She's Chiricahua Apache, and worked at the Native American Health Center in SF for two years as a diabetes educator before starting a master's in Environmental Health Science at Hopkins, where she continued her focus on Indigenous health disparities. In her spare time, she loves reading scifi, hiking, and undermining colonialism.
On its website, Anthropocene Alliance describes itself thusly:
Anthropocene Alliance (A2) has 125 member-communities in 35 U.S. states and territories. They are impacted by flooding, toxic waste, wildfires, and drought and heat — all compounded by reckless development and climate change. The consequence is broken lives and a ravaged environment.
The goal of A2 is to help communities fight back. We do that by providing them organizing support, scientific and technical guidance, and better access to foundation and government funding. Most of all, our work consists of listening to our frontline leaders. Their experience, research, and solidarity guide everything we do, and offer a path toward environmental and social justice.
Supported by outstanding partner organizations with expertise in engineering, hydrology, public health, planning, and the law, A2 leaders have successfully halted developments in climate-vulnerable areas; implemented nature-based hazard mitigation strategies; organized home buyouts; and pushed for clean-ups at superfund sites, toxic landfills, and petrochemical plants.
We support everyone we can, but our special priority is people who have suffered the worst environmental impacts for the longest time; that usually means low-income, Black, Latinx, Native American and other underserved communities.
A2's website: https://anthropocenealliance.org/
Donate here: https://anthropocenealliance.org/donate/
During the episode, Sheelah refers to Citizens' Resistance at Fermi Two (CRAFT).
CRAFT's A2 page can be found here: https://anthropocenealliance.org/citizens-resistance-at-fermi-two/
CRAFT's own website can be found here: https://www.shutdownfermi.org/
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